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It started with a case for a deep fake. A woman in her early twenties slid over her phone. Vince looked up at her.

“What is this?” he asked.

“This video!” she shouted. “It got my brother killed!” Confused, Vince hit play.

The video started in a parking lot. A cameraman was walking through the dim light. Up ahead, a man was coming out of a store. (The name was blurred out.) The cameraman ran up to him.

“You!”

The man looked up. He started to panic.

“You! You’re Henry Ono, aren’t you? Aren’t you?” the cameraman asked. The man panicked and ran to his car.

“Where are you going?! We know what you did! Get back here! Why are you running away, man? Why are you running away?!” the cameraman taunted. His victim jumped into the car and sped off.

“We know what you are! Kiddie raper! Dirty, sick ,disgusting pervert!” the cameraman yelled after the vehicle.

Vince hit pause. He heard something about this video going viral. The comments were brutal. Vince looked up. The woman looked ready to cry.

“Lies! It’s all disgusting lies!” she said, trembling with rage.

“What did he allegedly do?” he asked. The woman rolled her eyes.

“They think he’s a pedophile. No! He’s not! It’s that stupid bitch of an ex!” she said.

“And why would she do that?”

“She’s vindictive and petty like that!” The woman sighed. “She’s mad that he wouldn’t marry her. That bitch was crazy.” She breathed out.

“And he’s dead because of her?”

“Yes!” She breathed out a huff.

“And you want proof of this?” Vince asked.

“Yes,” the woman said. The PI sat up straight.

“I will see what I can do,” he said.

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The video came from the channel Shive-Mithira on YouTube. They had 40,000+ videos and shorts. All of them had one thing in common. These people hunted predators. Of all of the victims in their videos, twelve of them turned up dead. The first two were coincidences. But now, not so much.

Vince looked through the papers. Some people online connected the dots. Some thought that they were the ones killing these alleged pedophiles. But was it all true?

His client was convinced that the video with her brother was fake. She was convinced that he wasn’t like that. Some relatives were in denial like that. They loved one was a total monster. This might have been one of those cases.

The first thing Vince did was ask around about Henry Ono. The PI got a mixed bag of stories. Some believed the rumors while others stuck up for him. Vince didn’t know who to believe. They all sounded so convincing. Time to ask about the ex.

Her name was Angela. She… had problems of her own. The mental kind. She was desperate to get married and start a family. Angela would be thirty in two years. Desperation was a scary thing. But would she turn to doing something like this after being rejected? Maybe…

They had a rather rocky cycle with many dates and breaking up. Henry finally dumped her after their last fight was particularly nasty. So maybe…

Suddenly, Vince got another notification.

“Huh?” he asked. The PI turned his head. There was a new video on the channel. An idea popped up in his head. Maybe this could be his lead to find out more about the people behind Shiva-Mithira, if Henry was really innocent, and who really killed him.

Vince clicked on the new video.